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[More_Badass]

This is awesome news!

I can only imagine some of the comments right now on certain parts of the Internet...

 

[shacklesmcgee]

These threads always bring out the "I don't hate Anita/Zoe, buutttt..." stragglers

Really happy to see that we're at least trying to do something about online harassment, even if it's the UN that's doing it.

 

[Garlador]

Geez, the responses to the Google tweets are infuriating.

I was about to respond to some of them until I realized I'd be kissing the rest of my afternoon goodbye.

There's so much hate and vileness there, all under the banner of "free speech"... as if society tolerates all speech.

 

[jonjonaug]

Those aren't "receipts" for Anita and/or Zoe supposedly mounting an online harassment campaign.

One of your articles even specifies that the apology was unsolicited.

I think he's referring to another of the speakers who was the first person to call out the shirt on twitter (and was subjected to harassment because of this).

 

[Belfast]

I feel for what these women went/going through. However, what can be done that don't greatly prohibit free speech on the internet? How will it be regulated? Do we really want "Big Brother" deciding what we can or can't say online? I get that people are a-holes online, but that's what the block/mute button is for.

Free speech, at least as it exists in the US, really only protects your ability to say something. It doesn't protect you from the consequences of, say, people giving you a bunch of shit for what you just said. Likewise, what you say can be used against you if it threatens the freedom of another individual or involves promises of physical or emotional harm.

In other words, you can say what you want, just be prepared to deal with the backlash if you say something dumb.

 

[Carcetti]

This over aggressive attitude is how they lose a lot of people who would likely support their cause as well. It's really sad.

It's not an actual discussion. One of these threads start, junior accounts made in advance start spouting arguments that were proven to be bullshit months if not years ago, shoot a couple of drive by posts, don't actuallly respond to anything unless the readymade script has an answer ready. Someone who's not too tired already disproves arguments, juniors don't care, couple get banned and they go to their chan of choice to complain about GAF moderation, create new junior accounts to wait for next discussion.

It's pretty much like listening to scientologists or creationists. Completely fruitless and absolutely annoying.

 

[Sai-kun]

This over aggressive attitude is how they lose a lot of people who would likely support their cause as well. It's really sad.

if your (not literally you, MisterR, the colloquial you) support of ending online harassment of women honestly hinges upon whether or not you were treated well when posting alllivesmatter bullshit, then your support wasn't very strong to begin with, and you probably don't really give a shit either way.

Just mentally picturing your comment the other way around, that's all.

where did animlboogy send death threats to that users family in that post? i'm not seeing it

 

[ANDS]

At least offer some actual example rather than a pointless statement without any support.

Nonsense retort. Cyber-bullying isn't my area of expertise, so why would I know who the experts are? However I don't need to name drop a leader in the field to know there are academics with a primary interest in it who have done research with more than one data point. A Web of Knowledge search of "cyber bullying" and "female" turns up 49 results with the top ten papers being cited over (combined) 600 times (there's certainly some overlap).

AS and ZQ offer the "personal account" with a bit of "celebrity" thrown in. That's great. However you wouldn't only invite a Katrina victim to speak at a Climate Change summit as your "proof" of it's existence.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

How about not someone who decided to attack and then start a huge online harassment attack against the person who managed to land a probe on a meteorite all because of what he was wearing the day the landing occurred?

I think that would be a good place to start.

What.

 

[Armaros]

Just mentally picturing your comment the other way around, that's all.

yes because the sum of what they have had to deal with is 'jokes'.

 

[RMI]

Cool, there needs to be more accountability for online behavior.

Interesting, wonder how it's going to turn out. Who's this Zoe Quinn person though?

She made a text game about depression called depression quest.

 

[Coffee Dog]

Just mentally picturing your comment the other way around, that's all.

It's almost as if one of those things is more harmful than the other.

It's okay to hurt people's feelings when they support stupid bullshit.

Heh, the irony is obvious if you take that last sentence in a vacuum, but if you include the context of what I actually posted that doesn't work at all.

If I made him feel bad for considering the context of whataboutism in a broader sense that includes #alllivesmatter, I feel 100% OK about that.

Exactly. Shaming is part of making change.

 

[TurnipFritters]

I appreciate the folks in this topic who are like "I don't agree with all of Sarkeesian's points but the near constant stream of vitriol she gets is really upsetting" because y'all are actual adults and understand that you can disagree with someone without taking it as an attack on your person. As opposed to some folks who get real mad when she suggests maybe female characters in video games aren't always written that well.

Interesting, wonder how it's going to turn out. Who's this Zoe Quinn person though?

She made a free game in Twine a while back and creepy people got mad about it.

 

[TheSlySoul]

Anonymity has barely been a problem since Facebook. The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is disproven. People happily do this under their real names, with picture attached.

I wouldn't mind seeing criminal punishment for doing terrible things online.
My theory is people do it because they know they won't get in trouble even using real names/pictures.

 

[Polip Fawn]

If they wanted to make some ground they should have sent in professionals instead of themselves. Something tells me they won't be taken as seriously.

 

[ExVicis]

Fair enough. At this point more people are jumping on me than him, so I'm clearly in the wrong in the context of GAF.

I find whataboutism to be a sickening cancer on discourse so pardon my hyperbole.

It is incredibly disgusting in how it's used usually but I think in the terms of the UN is can be innocent enough just as an idea that there has been a lot of online harassment in general too that could be discussed. The whole deal with Lizard Squad was incredibly disgusting and that pretty much targeted everyone and could definiately be addressed as a worldwide issue.

Actually I kinda hope Anita addresses harassment as something the international community needs to tackle together since nowadays someone in another country far far away can make death threats or swat your house, work or event.

 

[The Technomancer]

Sarkeesian and Quinn are one thing, but Harper and Eveleth speaking about Online Harrassment falls in the same category as Saudi Arabia being appointed the head country for the UN's Human Rights panel.

Is there something about Harper I don't know about besides the blocklist?

 

[Azih]

Good on Quinn and Sarkeesian. Best possible people to be talking about this.

 

[partyphone]

Nonsense retort. Cyber-bullying isn't my area of expertise, so why would I know who the experts are? However I don't need to name drop a leader in the field to know there are academics with a primary interest in it who have done research with more than one data point. A Web of Knowledge search of "cyber bullying" and "female" turns up 49 results with the top ten papers being cited over (combined) 600 times (there's certainly some overlap).

AS and ZQ offer the "personal account" with a bit of "celebrity" thrown in. That's great. However you wouldn't only invite a Katrina victim to speak at a Climate Change summit as your "proof" of it's existence.

you admit to not knowing what you're talking about, claim that there are highly sited experts who you've obviously never heard of before and don't actually know anything about and then assert matter of factly that they'd be better than AS and ZQ.

so don't be offended when you get accused of having a personal dislike for these women which drives you to grasp at any sort of rational for excluding them.

 

[MisterR]

if your (not literally you, MisterR, the colloquial you) support of ending online harassment of women honestly hinges upon whether or not you were treated well when posting alllivesmatter bullshit, then your support wasn't very strong to begin with, and you probably don't really give a shit either way.



where did animlboogy send death threats to that users family in that post? i'm not seeing it

It's just that I think at times the aggressive attacks on these posters, who may well just be shit posting, may discourage people who may have real questions about issues or maybe are ignorant to some stuff, but who could be enlightened in some way. I understand the anger if a bunch of juniors are just popping in with drive by shit posts.

 

[Polip Fawn]

I wouldn't mind seeing criminal punishment for doing terrible things online.
My theory is people do it because they know they won't get in trouble even using real names/pictures.

Define terrible things? Insults? i think this is too far, considering even the media does it.

 

[BennyBlanco]

I know women and girls are getting the worst of it, and I'm all for this

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

I wouldn't mind seeing criminal punishment for doing terrible things online.
My theory is people do it because they know they won't get in trouble even using real names/pictures.

There is also this belief that what happens online doesn't have any affect on people offline. Like people don't think that the abuse won't affect others mentally.

 

[WolvenOne]

Okay, question.

I know online harassment is a thing, I've experienced my own share of it over the years for one thing or another, (not Anita Sarkeesian levels of harassment, but still.) Regardless, is there really any point in talking to the UN about it, or this another one of those "Feels good," kind of things? I mean, It's not as if the UN actually has any power over human behavior, in any way shape or form.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Nonsense retort. Cyber-bullying isn't my area of expertise, so why would I know who the experts are?

Well... because you implied you did:

Already addressed but there are academics who probably have binders full of women to lend their "voice" to this issue; women who do not have the advantage of celebrity.

Oh, wait. You said 'probably'. So yeah, you're basically admitting your initial response was just nonsensical with no foundation. Thanks for the valueless input, I suppose?

 

[Coffee Dog]

It's just that I think at times the aggressive attacks on these posters, who may well just be shit posting, may discourage people who may have real questions about issues or maybe are ignorant to some stuff, but who could be enlightened in some way. I understand the anger if a bunch of juniors are just popping in with drive by shit posts.

If you actually get your feelings hurt when you support bullshit, then maybe you need to take a step back and realize you might be part of the problem.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Okay, question.

I know online harassment is a thing, I've experienced my own share of it over the years for one thing or another, (not Anita Sarkeesian levels of harassment, but still.) Regardless, is there really any point in talking to the UN about it, or this another one of those "Feels good," kind of things? I mean, It's not as if the UN actually has any power over human behavior, in any way shape or form.

Talking to Google was probably far more productive.

 

[Armaros]

It's just that I think at times the aggressive attacks on these posters, who may well just be shit posting, may discourage people who may have real questions about issues or maybe are ignorant to some stuff, but who could be enlightened in some way. I understand the anger if a bunch of juniors are just popping in with drive by shit posts.

People doing drive-by 'just asking questions' has been a common tactic in these types of threads.

The majority of the time, those questions are not from a position of ignorance.

 

[Tenebrous]

Okay, question.

I know online harassment is a thing, I've experienced my own share of it over the years for one thing or another, (not Anita Sarkeesian levels of harassment, but still.) Regardless, is there really any point in talking to the UN about it, or this another one of those "Feels good," kind of things? I mean, It's not as if the UN actually has any power over human behavior, in any way shape or form.

Wondering this myself. I'm well aware that online harrassment is a horrible thing, but I can't see this achieving anything.

 

[hobblygobbly]

Is there something about Harper I don't know about besides the blocklist?

From what I'm aware of years before GamerGate she doxxed a debt collector (?) and threatened him/her. The thing is... I don't know if GamerGate has spun it wildly or not because GamerGate dug it up (like tweets I think). That's the only thing I'm aware of, don't know anything about Eveleth.

 

[Polip Fawn]

Okay, question.

I know online harassment is a thing, I've experienced my own share of it over the years for one thing or another, (not Anita Sarkeesian levels of harassment, but still.) Regardless, is there really any point in talking to the UN about it, or this another one of those "Feels good," kind of things? I mean, It's not as if the UN actually has any power over human behavior, in any way shape or form.

From what I am hearing, the goal is to escalate the harassment to crime status. Which would cause quite a stir since the media also does it.

 

[TurnipFritters]

Okay, question.

I know online harassment is a thing, I've experienced my own share of it over the years for one thing or another, (not Anita Sarkeesian levels of harassment, but still.) Regardless, is there really any point in talking to the UN about it, or this another one of those "Feels good," kind of things? I mean, It's not as if the UN actually has any power over human behavior, in any way shape or form.

It's a "Feels good" kind of thing, because as you stated: this is the UN. At best it might make people who engage in that kind of behavior realize the world kind of thinks they're jerks, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

[UncleSporky]

Heh, the irony is obvious if you take that last sentence in a vacuum, but if you include the context of what I actually posted that doesn't work at all.

That's seriously all I was talking about, that's why I quoted it in a vacuum. I'm not defending the "all lives matter" viewpoint. Just the literal "oh, grow thicker skin" sort of thing, which is nearly always used by the people issuing death threats.

Just the gut feeling, "wow, I've seen this wording before," that's all.

 

[TheSlySoul]

Define terrible things? Insults? i think this is too far, considering even the media does it.

Insults, no.
Threats of rape, death, and harming others? Yes, IRL it is harassment.

Pretty much if you can't do it in public, you can't do it online.

There is also this belief that what happens online doesn't have any affect on people offline. Like people don't think that the abuse won't affect others mentally.

I can see this, you can do mental gymnastics to convince yourself that the person you are talking to is not human.

 

[Robaperas]

space scientist apologizes for sexist shirt

Rosetta scientist breaks down during apology live

I think the original tweet is gone by now thought

Those aren't "receipts" for Anita and/or Zoe supposedly mounting an online harassment campaign.

One of your articles even specifies that the apology was unsolicited.

Yep, wrong receipts.

 

[TimeEffect]

This isn't just about gaming, I assume. Which means it's a good topic to discuss in general.

I mean, online harassment of women is wider than just the Tropes stuff or Gamergate, and this is presumably a good springboard to discuss wider issues that fall under "online harassment against women". I think maybe some people will get hung up on the gaming aspect of what is generally a wider issue.

For example, revenge porn or getting unsolicited or creepy messages from someone on social media is harassment, right? Remember that Harry Potter guy? Or that woman on Linkedin who received some kind of comment about her appearance from an employer? Maybe harassment is too harsh a word in these scenarios, but I'm sure there are stronger examples. Well actually, I guess the gamergate stuff is a perfect example, but the point is, it happens regularly and quietly too, and the gamergate stuff offers a really exposed look at how crazy it can get.

I'm curious about the overlap between gamergate and online mob justice though. It is distinct from individual examples as it is a a bunch of people systematically harassing a few individual persons. Remember Amanda Todd?

Or how about dating sites where men say some truly horrible and psychotic things to women? That rarely happens the other way around. But another solid example of harassment against women.

 

[Polip Fawn]

Insults, no.
Threats of rape, death, and harming others? Yes, IRL it is harassment.

Pretty much if you can't do it in public, you can't do it online.


I can see this, you can do mental gymnastics to convince yourself that the person you are talking to is not human.

People do the latter 2 all the time though. In fact, even media sometimes does the last one. Also considering those things have been not taken seriously by posters in internet culture for decades, I don't think this is going to get anywhere regardless.

 

[Bionic]

If you willing choose to ignore the first few sentences I wrote that is YOUR problem not mine. In any case, you are still wrong.

I would love to see these imaginary schools that focuses entirely on individual experiences, because that would make for some poor learning. You can learn from individual experiences but academic knowledge is no substitute for real world experience. Academic knowledge by definition is impersonal, it has to be to be applicable to the general population.

Since you love focusing on the Tl;dr

tl;dr

You are still less correct.


Academic social science uses board strokes. It is by design impersonal. You cannot properly analyse a culture by looking at specific individuals, you look at things that are common within that specific culture. In any case, people currently experiencing harassment are more important because they show the individual impact of harassment. Most academics do not get to experience that.

I know that you're giving a generalization, but this is not accurate. There are so many people in academic social science (or industry, but publishing in academic journals or at academic conferences) who use ethnographic, contextual inquiry, interview, participatory action research and other qualitative methods that are specifically about looking at specific individuals, or to effect change. Saying that "Academic social science uses broad strokes" is ignoring a huge number of studies, including several that have looked at individual-level experiences quite related to this topic, like reputation management and privacy/security strategies. Some social scientists try to remove all bias from their studies. Others acknowledge and embrace their bias as a way to effect change, such as in power structures between disadvantaged and majority groups by including members of a group they study on the research team. These are all academic social science.

And towards your point about generalizability being the ultimate goal, it's not. Only focusing on research that generalizes to the entire population is a really great way to (1) get savaged by reviewers because it's impossible, (2) ignore the most interesting problems, which are those that are complicated and depend on special cases, and (3) end up like developmental psychology a lifetime ago, where everything was focused on "the baby", who was white, male, and in America. There's way more to be learned about people by focusing on individuals, and I know very few academic social science researchers who would disagree with that.

 

[ANDS]

you admit to not knowing what you're talking about

Is anyone here an "expert" on online harassment/cyber-bullying?

claim that there are highly sited experts who you've obviously never heard of before and don't actually know anything about

Of course there are. Again a nonsense response. Do you know anything about gene therapy? Would you honestly not assert that there are experts in the field because you have no idea who they actually are. Ridiculous.

and then assert matter of factly that they'd be better than AS and ZQ.

I never said they'd be "better" than AS or ZQ. What does "better" even mean in your mind? If the goal of this talk is to raise awareness of "cyber-bullying" then high profile victims are certainly more than qualified. If however the goal is to look at the epidemiology of "cyber-bullying" then yes. . .there are most definitely people better qualified than these two to speak on the issue.

so don't be offended when you get accused of having a personal dislike for these women which drives you to grasp at any sort of rational for excluding them.

I don't have a personal dislike for either of these woman. Feel free to trudge my post history or whatever it is folks do when lobbing accusations like that on this forum.

Well... because you implied you did:

I certainly did not. See above comment to another poster if you're still confused.

Oh, wait. You said 'probably'. So yeah, you're basically admitting your initial response was just nonsensical with no foundation. Thanks for the valueless input, I suppose?

Asked and answered.

 

[Mihos]

I don't agree with much of their stuff.... but the online harassment is just ridiculous and needs to stop.

Talking to the UN about this as a huge women's issue on the same week they are dealing with the absolutely horrible atrocities happening to women in Africa and the middle east, kind of makes me think his would pretty low on the UN priority list. Get the hundereds of school girls that were taken and sold as wives to terrorist back... then we can start addressing your twitter account.

 

[ExVicis]

Yeah, I used one of those guys earlier as an example of how punishment tends to be given out sparingly even when law enforcement does bother to get involved.

I think the context here is to hear from women on a series of topics at the UN though, and this happens to be one of them. And they certainly deserve the mouthpiece after the year they had.

Online harassment is a problem for everybody, but for women right now it is a flaming beacon of a dumpster fire. Of any group to hear from on the topic, I think these women have the most visible and recent stories to tell about being targeted by the largest numbers of aggressors at once.

I do actually agree, I think if we want someone to discuss online harassment from both a personal experience and as well with an educated view Anita is a pretty good person to go with and we know she can publicly speak and well. I'm not so sure about Zoe Quinn but if she goes to say her piece I wish her all the best the same as Anita.

My only hope is that is that something does come out of it and that the issue is given the attention it deserves and not just some "Here give your speech and fade back into obscurity we have other things to talk about".

 

[James Scott]

This summer I was a victim of harassment online from people I actually knew. Found out that they've been stocking me on my personal account (which was a secret from people I knew IRL) for several months in order to make fun of me behind my back. Had to put my account on private and despite multiple pleas for help from Twitter they never responded. Several account pretending to be me popped up spreading false info about me threatening to use the false info to call the cops on me. Felt pretty bad, I left Twitter because of it (my account is still up but I'm not using it). Twitter and social media in general really needs a better system to deal with harassment and laws to deal with harassers.
Twitter finally took down one of the accounts that was literally my user name but with a capital "i" in the place of a lowercase L after like 2 months but after several times saying "we don't see the problem".
I don't like feeling unsafe on the internet nor in my own home.

 

[Dragon Puncher]

They would know! I'm happy this is at least now an issue that's being talked about in a serious matter.

 

[weemadarthur]

Actually...no.

What argument are you making to support your response? I posit that most harassers include sufficient harassment toward women, and that if their accounts suffered due to abuse, there would be fewer people on any given website that abuse others.

 

[Anton Sugar]

I don't agree with much of their stuff.... but the online harassment is just ridiculous and needs to stop.

Talking to the UN about this as a huge women's issue on the same week they are dealing with the absolutely horrible atrocities happening to women in Africa and the middle east, kind of makes me think his would pretty low on the UN priority list. Get the hundereds of school girls that were taken and sold as wives to terrorist back... then we can start addressing your twitter account.

You realize that the UN isn't canceling any other appointments for "more important stuff" because of this, right?

 

[ilium]

If you willing choose to ignore the first few sentences I wrote that is YOUR problem not mine. In any case, you are still wrong.

I would love to see these imaginary schools that focuses entirely on individual experiences, because that would make for some poor learning. You can learn from individual experiences but academic knowledge is no substitute for real world experience. Academic knowledge by definition is impersonal, it has to be to be applicable to the general population.

Since you love focusing on the Tl;dr

tl;dr

You are still less correct.


Academic social science uses board strokes. It is by design impersonal. You cannot properly analyse a culture by looking at specific individuals, you look at things that are common within that specific culture. In any case, people currently experiencing harassment are more important because they show the individual impact of harassment. Most academics do not get to experience that.

Again, no, it doesn't. It is not imperative for academic research in social science to arrive at generalizations applicable to the general public. It certainly can elevate your research if you manage to embed it within a broader sociocultural context, but again, it is not imperative.
Also contrary to your belief, social science is, in fact personal by design.
Why? Because if you put a human researcher and a human subject together, it becomes inherently personal. Science about humans by humans can never be completely impersonal. That's just the nature of things.

Again, and this is and was not meant in a patronizing way, but maybe you should educate yourself on methodologies in social science, like qualitative research, participatory observation and ethnography in general, because your view on social science is pretty uninformed.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

Jesus christ those tweet replies.

The complete lacking of self awareness in some people is really quite impressive.

 

[Fractal]

The end to anonymity for starters. Anonymity on the public level is still fine but somehow limiting sockpuppet accounts and somehow making it easier to trace someone's online movements once investigations begin is a start. Holding twitter accountable if they refuse to cooperate (since they handwave a lot of harassment away) is another. Tightening their registration process and adding more means for controlling incoming or outgoing or visible messages is another.

I'm sorry, but that's not a plausible solution. Anonymity is the building block of the Internet and enforcing such rules would be borderline impossible, being able to properly regulate and verify the data of such a huge number of accounts wouldn't work, and the public would be instantly up in arms. Remember ACTA?

If any non-commercial site like a gaming forum ever asked me to input my personal data while they do a background check, I'd steer clear of it instantly. Even though I'm a bit too old to issue death threats and throw around incoherent insults, on the Internet I'm only an username, and I want things to stay that way. Love me, hate me or ignore me, in the end, I'm Fractal... nothing more and nothing less.

In all honesty, I have no idea for a proper and efficient solution which also serves as a compromise and doesn't shake the very concept of the Internet... and if I may say, I'm glad I'm not the one who's expected to come up with one...

 

[Garlador]

Jesus christ those tweet replies.

The complete lacking of self awareness in some people is really quite impressive.

It's almost commendable. Almost.

And so many of them are just a lost cause.

 

[GillianSeed79]

I don't agree with much of their stuff.... but the online harassment is just ridiculous and needs to stop.

Talking to the UN about this as a huge women's issue on the same week they are dealing with the absolutely horrible atrocities happening to women in Africa and the middle east, kind of makes me think his would pretty low on the UN priority list. Get the hundereds of school girls that were taken and sold as wives to terrorist back... then we can start addressing your twitter account.

I'm pretty sure the U.N. is big enough and has enough committees that it can deal with multiple issues at one time. It's not like if they spend time addressing online harassment towards women they have to stop work on trying to help ISIS sex slaves or freeing kidnapped Nigerian school girls.